They found that the HQCs were capable of selective separation of cancer cells in blood or saline using an external magnet. The fact that the clusters are fluorescent means they can be imaged.
The authors hope their system could one day be used for a dialysis-type set up for cancer therapy.
Read this HOT Nanoscale article in full:
Fluorescent and superparamagnetic hybrid quantum clusters for magnetic separation and imaging of cancer cells from blood
C. V. Durgadas, Chandra P. Sharma and K. Sreenivasan
Nanoscale, 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C1NR10900F
